Opower has vaulted itself onto public markets by analyzing energy usage for utility companies and providing charts and other bits from data to ratepayers. Opower has an ambitious master plan, and it involves decreasing energy usage at scale.

Cutting back on greenhouse gases is only one part of the fight against climate change. The planet will also need to capture and store — or, better yet, capture and re-use — the gases already out there.

Everybody Solar is helping charities like the Bay Area low-income home rehab volunteer organization Rebuilding Together Peninsula go green by accessing the free energy of the sun — with free solar panels, to boot.

Siluria Technologies, the San Francisco-based cleantech company that is developing a technology to turn natural gas into transportation fuels and industrial chemicals, announced it has raised $30 million in investment for its third founding round.

Thermostat maker Nest is joining forces with its first utility company, Reliant of Texas. The energy provider plans to distribute the smart thermostat to customers who sign up for the Reliant Learn & Conserve two-year plan.

The U.S. Department of Energy wants normal Americans to start using solar energy in their everyday lives. To that end, it’s just granted $2 million to Solar Mosaic, a sort of Kickstarter for solar projects.

It’s become a tired pattern these days: create an innovative product, then sit back and watch the patent lawsuits pile up. That’s what happened to the smart thermostat maker Nest, which wowed the world with its gorgeous web-connected device in October, but later faced a patent infringement lawsuit from Honeywell.

Oil means more than just gasoline. For many folks, it’s also how they heat their homes.
NeighborOil is a startup that’s reexamining how communities buy oil for heating and helping consumers negotiate for better prices and better service. And starting today, it’s bringing its revolutionary model to a wide range of residential utilities, including electricity and natural gas.

Leyden Energy, a developer of consumer electronics batteries that operate at temperatures as high as 60°C, announced today that it has raised $20 million in its second round of funding led by New Enterprise Associates.

Here’s your daily dose of science: Researchers in South Korea have been working on technology that could turn sound into electricity, something that could potentially let you charge your cellphone while also talking into it, in addition to a multitude of other uses.

What if a burglar could browse data which reveals which houses in an area are empty, or a cyberattack could create an electricity blackout? What if you unwittingly paid for your neighbour’s electricity, or a hacker could hijack control of your washing machine?

Smart grid company GridPoint is nearing a public stock offering, possibly beating Silver Spring to the IPO punch, speculates the Washington Business Journal. The article notes that GridPoint has raised $220 million from venture capital and needs to show a payoff soon for its investors. The company has also done well in the marketplace, winning a $28.7 million contract with the Postal Service, making several acquisitions and hiring executives who have IPO experience.

Today marked the inaugural post from U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu on the Department of Energy’s new Energy Blog, which it has launched in an obvious effort to better engage with the American public. It’s timely in the wake of the BP oil spill and upcoming mid-term elections in November that could change the course of the department’s funding programs.